Sprout Mask Replica

  ‘Of course you did.’ The chap behind the desk’s head bobbed up and down in the manner of a nodding dog in a Cortina rear window (whatever happened to them?).

  ‘So you will therefore have realized that what we must do, must be done.’

  ‘Er,’ said Felix. ‘Mm, yes.’

  ‘Good. Good. We have, of course, prepared the isolation chamber. It is constructed entirely of wood so that no interference will reach you. A special bath of sterile solution has been constructed to contain your brain, it will float upon this, wired up to an electrical contrivance that will channel its brainwaves through—’

  And so on and so forth and Felix listened, somewhat slack-jawed and all agape.

  ‘And with your naked unfettered brain, world domination should be a piece of pork pie, as it were,’ the chap concluded.

  And his words hung in the air like drying laundry.

  ‘A piece of pork pie.’ Felix’s slackened jaw became all wibbly-wobbly. He was indeed in this thing well over his head. In fact, this thing was going to cost him his head.

  This man, this we – because it was definitely a we rather than a me – was going to do for him good and proper and Felix now knew for absolutely good and proper and certain that there was about as much chance of he himself really being one of these so called Alpha Men as there was of him piloting the aforementioned English moonship.

  ‘Well,’ said the truly rattled Felix, ‘this has really been most interesting, but I think I must be off about my business now. Things to do, people to see, you know how it is.’

  ‘Things to think,’ said the chap. ‘People to mould.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what I said, nor what I meant.’

  ‘We know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘I don’t think you do. Honestly I don’t.’

  ‘Let’s get you down to pre-med,’ said the chap.

  ‘Oh no, let’s don’t!’

  And then there was some unpleasantness. Felix rose to take his leave. The chap rose to stop him, there was some pushing and shoving and then there was some punching and running. The latter all the work of Felix.

  Monday morning and ten of that clock found a most worried Felix sipping at his tea and declining his Bourbon biscuit.

  ‘Did you have a nice weekend, Felix?’ Norman’s voice was that of the condemned prisoner who asks the captain of the firing squad what tomorrow’s weather forecast is.

  But instead of the usual, ‘Well, on Saturday I’m off down the boozer and what do I see but someone wearing the very shoes I’ve had in my mind to put on the market for months now,’ there came a dismal groan and a sad little voice that said, ‘Bad news, Norman. Bad news.’

  ‘I suppose you know my wife broke her leg?’

  ‘No.’

  Norman slumped back in his utility office chair. ‘No, Felix? What do you mean, no?’

  Felix shook his head. ‘Well, how would I know? No-one told me.’ And then Felix went on to tell Norman all about the Ministry of Serendipity and his escape and his running along railway tunnels and falling down and taking the knee out of his trousers and having to go back to the dry-cleaners to discover that a steam iron had been left on his best ones and burned the bum out and how he was a doomed man and everything. Everything.

  When Norman went to visit his wife in hospital that evening he told her all about everything. Everything that Felix had told to him.

  ‘Well, I knew that was bound to happen,’ said Norman’s wife. ‘But, of course, no-one ever listens to me.’

  Norman raised a quizzical eyebrow to this and then shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he told himself, ‘not a chance.’

  As for the Ministry of Serendipity. Well, who can say? You certainly can’t get a train to Mornington Crescent (well you certainly could not when this book was written) and that must prove something. Felix is still up and about and occasionally, very occasionally, phrases such as ‘I suppose you know who they stole that idea from’ can be heard coming from his direction. But these are accompanied by much nervous over-the-shoulder looking and rarely go any further.

  It’s a bit of a shame really, as he’s a harmless enough fellow.

  Of course, I knew it was all going to happen.

  But then no-one ever listens to me.

  But they will.

  Oh yes they will.

  Because finally, in case you were wondering where all this has been leading, it’s now that my story truly begins.

  ROPED INTO SOCCER

  Roped into soccer on Thursdays.

  Pair of old boots on my shoulder.

  Pads made of bone

  To protect precious shin,

  Big brother’s shorts

  Secured by a pin.

  I shan’t do this stuff when I’m older.

  Roped into soccer? Not me, sir!

  Roped into games, Friday morning.

  Plimsolls that smell in the summer.

  Horses to vault

  When you haven’t a note.

  Mats made of rush

  And you can’t wear your coat.

  Burns upon hands that might play the piano.

  Roped into games? No, not me, sir!

  Roped into dull social studies

  By teachers with beards and bad jackets.

  Learning of Lenin

  And Stalin and Marx,

  Tolpuddle Martyrs,

  Sedition and sparks,

  Crass revolutions in God-awful places.

  Roped into that lot? Not me, sir!

  Roped into prizes on Prize Day.

  Projects that no-one approved of.

  Always some boff

  From the fourth form or third

  Who writes some great thesis

  On ‘flight of the bird’

  And wins every prize and becomes the school captain.

  Roped into prizes. NO THANK YOU!

  I was always a loner really.

  4

  Now there are revelations.

  And there are REVELATIONS.

  The preceding chapters were laid before you not without good reason. The matter of my great3 granddaddy’s sporran, my Uncle Brian’s discoveries regarding the hidden properties of metal, Felix Lemon’s encounter with the Ministry of Serendipity, all these play a part in revelations yet to come.

  But of the REVELATIONS, these begin right here.

  My discovery that I was the Chosen One came quite without warning. Although I had always considered myself a bit of a loner, I had no idea just how much of a loner I really was. The sudden revelation came as quite a shock and unleashed a chain of events that I could never have foreseen.

  But I am getting ahead of myself here. Let me begin at the beginning, or as near to the beginning as is necessary. To begin...

  Let me tell you about my brother.

  Being four years my senior, he held for me the status of a demi-god.

  While Mother shooed away my questions with talk of pressing housework, and Father replied to my askings with parables, brother Andy was always there to provide an answer when one was required. How well I recall the occasion of my eighth birthday, when he taught me all about the workings of our record player. It being my birthday, I was allowed, as a very special treat, to sit alone beneath the kitchen table and lick the varnish on the legs.

  Ah, such childhood bliss.

  My brother was playing the gramophone record he had bought me as a present. It was by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band and although it made little sense to me at the time, I was pleased that at least my brother seemed to be enjoying it.

  I remember sitting there in the damp and darkness, a fine veneer of rosy varnish crusting my tongue, watching the god-like being as he sat yonder on the area of linoleum that caught the afternoon sun, tapping his bare toes to the beat and picking the scabs from his knees.

  And eating them.

  A question had entered my head, most probably through the bald patch on the top where the ring worm nested, and I was eager to pass the question o
n to my brother.

  I waited patiently for the opportunity and this came shortly after the sixth playing of the record’s A side, when brother Andy got up to fetch some rose hip syrup to wash down the last of his scabs.

  ‘Brother Andy,’ I called from the damp and darkness, ‘tell me, pray, how that thing works.’

  ‘How what thing works, young Dog’s Breath?’ he replied, for this was his affectionate ‘pet name’ for me.

  ‘The stereo system, oh Great One.’ For this was the name he had chosen for himself.

  ‘It has an electrical motor,’ he said informatively.

  ‘No. I understand that.’ I didn’t. ‘I mean the music. The music comes off the record and goes out of the speakers, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does.’

  ‘So how come there’s any music left on the record to play a second time? Wouldn’t it all have come off and gone out of the speakers?’

  ‘Good point, DB,’ said the Great One. And then he went on to explain. ‘You see, in the old days that’s exactly what happened. At the music factory where the record was made they put the music on in layers, like paint. But old-fashioned gramophones just had this needle connected to a horn for the music to come out of and the needle scratched the music off layer by layer until none was left. If you play an old 78 on a modern record player, all you’ll hear is crackles, because most of the music has been scraped off.’

  Impressed so far? I certainly was, and there was more to come.

  ‘Now,’ said he, beckoning me from the damp and darkness of my birthday treat, ‘you will notice that great progress has been made since those bad old days. Behold, if you will, this cable that runs from the record deck here, to the left speaker, there.’

  I beheld this.

  ‘Behold that it is a double cable. There are two separate wires inside.’

  I beheld this also.

  ‘The reason there are two is as follows. The music travels from the gramophone needle, along one of these wires and comes out of the speaker for us to hear. But and this is a big but, there is the second wire. Attached to the end of this second wire and inside the speaker itself there is a microphone. This picks up the music coming out of the speaker and carries it back to the stylus (which is the modern name for the needle) and right back onto the record again. It’s clever, isn’t it?’

  And I had to admit that it was.

  I would later discover that brother Andy had not been altogether honest with me in regard to this matter and so when it became necessary for me to kill and eat him, I did so without hesitation or regret.

  If there was ever proof needed for the existence of the Alpha Man, then that proof came in the shape of my brother. He was certainly an innovative inventor, but time and again his innovative inventions were callously poached away and perverted to the profit of other lesser men.

  I will offer just two examples of this, although the list is endless. Or at least, long. My brother’s favourite number was 300. Because if you turn 300 on its side it looks a bit like a bum pooing. Hence every innovative invention he came up with was inevitably one in the 300 Series. One of his earliest, and to my mind still one of his finest, was the

  RANKIN 300 SERIES PATENT

  SMOKE-EEZEE PERSONAL

  LEISURE FACILITY

  Allow me to explain, by asking you this: how many times have you been doing something tricky, where a cigarette would really help with the concentration, but smoking the cigarette only makes the job more difficult?

  My brother came up with the smoke-eezee. It was a metal harness that hung about the neck with a clip on the front at mouth level to hold your cigarette, and a small bowl slung beneath to catch the falling ash. Thus you could puff away to your heart’s content, whilst having both hands free for the work in hand. So to speak.

  The obvious applications were, well, obvious.

  Certain things in life require the smoking of a cigarette if they are to be done with any degree of conviction. Things such as typing up a novel about an American private detective, or playing blues piano in a nightclub, or even everyday things, like working a lathe or digging a hole or driving a car or having sex.

  The list is endless. Or at least, long.

  My brother made several modifications to the smoke-eezee, in order to cater to all tastes. He added extra attachments, to hold a pipe, a cigar, a cigarette in a holder, a joint. He even constructed a plastic flask that could be filled with alcohol and strapped to the top of the head. A straw depended from this and led to a sucking arrangement positioned next to the cigarette. Thus you could smoke and drink without having to use your hands.

  Brilliant!

  But!

  But, do you ever see people walking around nowadays wearing the smoke-eezee cigarette harness, with or without the optional head flask? When was the last time you saw a blues pianist or a rock guitarist wearing one? When was the last time you made love to someone wearing one?

  Never! That’s when.

  And I’ll tell you for why. The idea was stolen and perverted, and by its perversion it became a thing of ridicule and contempt.

  And it was all the fault of Woody Guthrie.

  He got hold of one of my brother’s cigarette harnesses, made an adaptation of his own and slotted in a harmonica.

  And the rest is music history.

  And far from b*^^%y tuneful it is too.

  Not that I think folk music is something that should be tossed aside lightly. On the contrary, I think it should be hurled with great force.

  And whilst on the subject of music, did you know that it was my brother who invented the discothèque? Well it was. Sort of. There was once a time before the discothèque and this was the time when my brother came up with another of his innovative inventions. The one that would lead to my REVELATION, but one which was once again cruelly lifted and perverted.

  My brother invented the travelling discothèque. Which is not to be confused with its subsequent rip-off, the mobile discothèque, although it was mobile, for that was the point.

  Allow me to explain.

  My brother liked going to nightclubs. We had just the one in Ealing, the imaginatively named, Ealing Club. Many bands, later to find fame, played their early gigs there, Manfred Mann, The Who, The Rolling Stones, but we never got to see any of them.

  Although we did get to hear them.

  The reason for this was that the Ealing Club was a bus ride away and once you had paid your bus fare there was no money left for the entrance fee. So we just had to stand outside and listen.

  My brother set himself to the solving of this conundrum and this led to the innovative invention in question.

  And it came about in this fashion.

  An uncle of ours, I forget his name, Uncle Charles it was, had a big old box van. One of those ones with plenty of headroom in the back and room for thirty or forty people standing up. My brother’s idea was to start his own nightclub in the back of this van and cash in on all those folk who only had money enough for bus fares.

  He would pick up club members at their own front doors, drive them about, taking in a scenic spot or two for romance and use of a toilet, then drop them home again at the end of the evening.

  Brilliant!

  In the big box back of the van there would be a little bar in one corner, a pianist with cigarette harness in another, a few chairs, a table or two nailed to the floor and room for people to dance. A bit of moody lighting and away you’d go. He put adverts in the local paper.

  CLUB 300

  The most exclusive nightclub in town.

  You don’t have to go to it.

  It will come to you.

  Ring this number for further details.

  etc.

  He got some bookings but it wasn’t a success. There simply wasn’t enough room in the back of the van. And once he’d paid the pianist and the barman, there was no profit left.

  So my brother, being an innovator, sacked the barman, a Mr Stringfellow, and the pianist, a Mr
Charles, tore out the piano, bar, tables and chairs and turned the entire back of the van into a single dance floor.

  On the ceiling he arranged a small mirror globe that turned by a clockwork motor and he would sit in the cab, shining a torch onto it through the little hatch behind the seats. To make things really special he got one of those torches that will shine three different colours.

  Music was provided by the van’s radio turned up full blast.

  Brilliant!

  It was a big success. And my brother was able, by studying the Radio Times in order to see what was on the radio each night, to organize ‘theme evenings’. Country and Western, reggae, psychedelic, etc. Forty people at least could be crammed in, each picked up from home and dropped back at the end of the evening.

  Brilliant! Brilliant!

  Looking into the future my brother foresaw an entire fleet of such disco vans, three hundred at the very least, covering the entire length and breadth of the country, supplying the night-life of the big city to out-lying rural communities.

  Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!

  But it was not to be.

  There were some unfortunate accidents. My brother lost his first van-load on an unmanned level crossing just outside Orton Goldhay. There was a party of old folk on board. Local Darby and Joan Club. My brother had discovered a radio station that played nineteen thirties dance band music, and old people can’t get out much to go to dances, can they?

  The van was just crossing the railway line when the old folk took it upon themselves to go into the hokey-cokey. They put their left leg in and their left leg out and shook them all about with such enthusiasm that they turned the van on its side.

  In the path of an oncoming train.

  My brother and the uncle whose name I can’t remember, Uncle Charles (who was driving), managed to scramble free of the cab, but the rear door of the van had been padlocked on the outside to prevent the old folk falling out at roundabouts. And the key to the padlock was on the key-ring with the ignition key. And the ignition key was still in the ignition. And the train was coming.